Analyzers have been developed to test the performance of a device under test (DUT), including testing transmitters, receivers, and/or communications channels employed by such a DUT. In some cases, these analyzers need to be able to determine a bit error rate (BER) of a signal received by the analyzer from the device under test (DUT).
In such cases, it is necessary to place the DUT in an operating mode where it can generate an appropriate bit pattern that can be used for performing a bit error rate (BER) measurement. In the past this has often been done by placing the DUT into a test mode where an internal pseudorandom bit stream (PRBS) test signal generator of the DUT is employed to generate a signal for measuring the BER.
However, some DUTs do not include a capability to be placed into a test mode where they transmit a PRBS signal for BER measurements.
It would be desirable to provide an efficient approach for testing the BER of a device under test without forcing the device to enter a test mode and generate a pseudorandom bit stream test signal.